Friday , September 27,
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle
Page Eight
THOUGHTS ON ROSH HASHONAH
By HOWARD SINGER
I have been looking at some
relics of a lost civilization. They
do not appear to be relics at first.
They are of paper, not parchment.
Antiquarians are not likely to
treasure the inscriptions. And yet
they are as surely relics of a lost
civilization as are stones found
in Egypt and covered with hiero,
giyphics.
I refer to the exhibit of humor-
ous Rosh Hashonah greeting cards
from Poland in the Library of
the Jewish Theological Seminary,
in New York. I call th •em relics
because it Is change, not time
which creates relics, and the world
has changed much since those
New Year cards were printed in
Poland 20 years ago. They are
relics because they were written
and sent in a world which no
longer exists. They are stimulat-
ing relics; unlike their ancient
counterparts they provoke us to
do some thinking about ourselves,
about Rosh Hashonah, and the fu-
ture.
Some 20 or 30 years ago, Jews
found time to laugh and wish
each other well at this time of
the year. The Jews of Poland, a
breed almost extinct now, looked
forward to the New Year with a
confidence amounting to gaiety.
Rosh Hashonah meant the same
thing to them that it does to us:
the time to settle accounts with
man and God. But they could be
confident about coming out on the
credit side of the ledger; we can-
not. As individuals, they felt that
they had sinned, but were not all
His children near to God? As a
people, they had suffered, but had
they not survived? Were they not
the Eternal People?
That sublime confidence is al-
most unknown today, nor is it
surprising. For the Polish Jews
who wrote humorous New Years
cards, life was comparatively sim-
ple. They lived in a world in
which murder was imprisoned, or,
even when released, confined to a
neighborly pogrom. There was
even something funny in the anti-
Semite, something pathetic in his
perpetual frustration. The anti-
Semite was a dull, inferior being,
whose excess of brawn was in-
adequate compensation for his
lack of brain power. He was a
throwback, confined to the shad-
ows of the world's thinking, still
capable of doing local harm but
Mr. and Mrs.
Joseph Chafetz
and Family
Wish Everyone A Very
Happy and Prosperous
New Year
Max and Marie
Bussey
ultimately to be subdued. Certain.
ly, no Jew need concern himself
with a dying force, a relic of the
dark ages. . . .
In brief, the inner life of the
Jew was immeasurably superior to
that of the anti-Semite, and our
people, instinctively sensing this,
were furnished with the inner
strength to withstand the clod.
And so they were able, on Rosh
Hashonah, to send each other greet-
ing cards which provoked a
chuckle from the sender and a
laugh from the recipient, for
laughter was no stranger to them.
To us, laughter sounds out of
place. For the next few years
those of us who laugh will feel
as guilty as if we had laughed at
a funeral. The sense of guilt will
be justifiable. If the normal period
of mourning for an individual is
one year, what shall we do for
six million individuals? We have
seen the world go berserk, and
the memory will not leave us
soon. The new precedent of mass
murder has finally destroyed the
sublime confidence of the Jew in
his survival. We have seen six
million people die because they
were Jews; we have seen the na-
tion that committed the murder
come frighteningly close to con-
quering the world. Even if these
were the only factors to be con-
sidered in our taking stock this
Rosh Hashonah, we would be badly
frightened.
But these arc not the only
factors. The things that are hap-
pening right now, in Europe and
in Palestine are even more re-
vealing, and more frightening,
than the things that happened
during the war. The Jew must
realize, this Rosh Hashonah, that
the peace treaties do not include
him; that he is still at war. The
Jew must finally find the courage
to admit that his enemies were
defeated by his friends, but that
many of his friends have now
become his enemies. We face new
enemies; we 'face the same en-
mity.
That is what Rosh Hashonah
should mean to us as a group.
It should be a time for honesty,
for self-searching, for review of
the national as well as the per-
sonal Illusions and follies to which
we seem to be addicted. As a peo-
ple, did we do all we might have
done to help those of our people
who needed our help? As a peo-
ple, are we doing all we can to
help the survivors to start life
anew in the lands of their choice?
Most important, as a people, are
we doing all we can to help the
survivors to start life anew in
the lands of their choice? Most
important, as a people, has the
impact of the past few years
really affected us; has it broken
up our old patterns of thinking,
or do our minds still have the
business as usual sign hanging
out? As a people, have we done
anything to prevent a similar
catastrophe from finishing what
the Nazis so auspiciously began?
Or are we still hamstrung by the
illusion that it can't happen here?
This Rosh Hashonah provides an
opportunity which ,we dare not lg.
nore. It provides an opportunity
to acquire something of the men
tality of veteran troops. Mean-
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ROSH HASHONAH GREETINGS
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Best Wishes
Le Shono Tovo Tikosevu
A HAPPY NEW YEAR
for
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New Year
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NEW YEAR'S GREETINGS
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Fred Peitz
Extend the
Season's Sincerest
Greetings
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Greetings from
Best Wishes from
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Harry Fortgang
TO THE ENTIRE JEWISH COMMUNITY
For a Greater Understanding
Among All Mankind—
Happy New Year
ingless optimism has no place in
such an outlook. Those who pre.
diet the arrival of an era of
peace and happiness lie. But the
veteran trooper has a kind of
confidence bred of battle. He has
a vague feeling that he will still
survive, having survived so much;
that it's all a matter of digging
your foxhole deep enough. Per.
haps that is what we should pray
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